And Stitch Markers

Since I have a bit of a knitting obsession going on right now, I thought it would be fun to create some more stitch markers. I have made a couple of pair and I love using them while I knit. I love to see the little sparklies in the knitting.

Earrings

Lately I have been having a creative block. I finally decided that if I pulled out some of by beads and findings, I could not put it away without making something. It was just the push I needed. I bought short strand of these beads in black and white. I used a couple, but wanted to make something else with them. The result, is the Tumbling Dice.

Cupcake!

For a year of so, I have been wanting to learn how to crochet so I could make amigurumi. Most of the patterns are for crochet and I love how cute they are. I found a pattern for a cupcake and luckily it was knitted. There are several knitting patterns actually. It was fun to decide whether to make white cake or chocolate cake and to go through my stash to find a yarn for icing. What was not that fun was the major increasing of stitches on the DPNs that needed to be done for the pattern. I do better with decreasing. I would love to give the "magic loop" a try. I watch the videos online for it, but none show beginning with so few stitches. I just can't visualize it in my head. I like how it turned out tho...

Fluff

Here is my latest hat completion. I do like working on hats. This hat is in one of my favorite colors. I love this color and have several skeins in various shades. The addition of the eyelash makes the hat very soft. It is now in the box waiting for donation.

Everybody Wants to Be a Cat

Oh to be Whiskers... I wish. I am posted about this nutty girl before. Sometimes when I don't see her for a while, I go on a hunt for her. Often I can find her closed up in one of the girls' rooms. She sneaks in when no one sees her. We call her teleportation cat or TP for short. They are convinced that she was not in the room when they closed the door. Today when I went on my TP hunt, I found her on Cara's bed completely relaxed. As stated many times...I want to be a cat.

Geting an AC Overhaul

The AC guys came out and replaced our system in the attic and one of the units. I cannot imagine how they can work in that heat. I know the attic is an oven. I made a comment about the heat to one of the guys. He just smiled and said they were used to it. Can you get used to heat like that?

Where's the Kitty...You Can't See Her

She was hiding. I washed Robyn prayer shawl in a big plastic container. I left it out a couple of days to let it dry before putting it away. It doesn't help if the washing container has mold growing in it. Apparently the container makes a great hiding place. Whiskers had a great time, sitting inside and watching everyone walk by. Sometimes she would jump out at us and we would pretend we didn't see her in there. Her favorite victim was Pretty. Pretty didn't pretend like we did and let her sister know that this jumping out was not appreciated. I think Whiskers was on the lookout for Pretty in this picture and was unaware that her prey was nearer than she thought.

Prayer Shawl

I have been working on a prayer shawl for Robyn's birthday. She wanted some numbers used within the shawl to reflect meaningful numbers in her life. I played around and frogged it a bunch before I finally came up with a pattern I liked. She was happy with it and the knitting part is now done. I am in the process of blocking it. I have never blocked before, so we will see how that goes. Hopefully it will go OK.

One of Life's Greatest Pleasures

I have been anticipating this morning for a couple of days. Today I finished a jar of peanut butter. Peanut butter is a source of joy around here in puppyville. I cut the jar in half and give one to each of the babies. Heaven. Jasmine delicately and slowly licks her half clean. I can't get a picture of her because she stops every time I come close. Maybe she thinks I will want some. She is a good
"sharer". Skittles on the other hand eats hers as fast as she can because you might want some and she is not much on sharing food. Anything else? Sure thing, but never food. When I came to take a picture, she would not look up no matter how much I tried to get her attention.

My Assistant Blog Author

Often when I am on the computer, Skittles will come in and lie near me. You never know what position she will be in. I sometimes talk to her as I write the blog, getting her input on various ideas or working. I am grateful for her help. Without her I would not be able to accomplish many things.

Yes, She Does Still Have Hair Left

One of the joys of having a white pet is the lovely white hair you will find on every thing. No matter how much you brush, there is always more to spread all over. Cara loves to carry Whiskers around and you can see the tell tale signs of that deed all over her clothes. Standing outside waiting with her for the school bus...shirt covered in cat hair. Getting out of the car for dance...leotard covered in cat hair. Coming to tell me good night...pajamas covered in cat hair. Check, check and check. It is hard to believe Whiskers has any hair left since Cara wears so much of it...trust me...she still has plenty.

Labs Are Vital to Me

Today Robyn and I were running around picking up school supplies. As we drove through the Wal-Mart parking lot (after trying to find the elusive page protectors cheaper than Office Depot), we came up on this truck. I asked Robyn to pull over so I could get a quick picture. She thought I was nuts. All I really saw were the words "Labs Are Vital". I didn't really pay much attention to the rest of the words. Those 3 words are meaningful to me. My Skittles is a lab mix and she is very vital to my happiness. We spend a lot of time together during the day and I cannot imagine a day without her sweet presence. After explaining what I saw to Robyn, she agreed with the sentiment. Our fur babies are a vital part of our lives.

What the Cat Drug In...

We came home this afternoon and was greeted with this sight. Pretty has been knitting AGAIN. The yarn ran from Robyn's room, through the kitchen and into the dining room. It seems like under the dining room table is her favorite knitting spot. Sometimes you will find a single thread of yarn passing through and other times I will find several whole skeins under the table. What is it with Pretty and the yarn?

Top Dog

Being a Senior brings some new activities. One is called Top Dog/Little Dog. The Seniors adopt a Freshman homeroom and do little things for them during the year. There are also other activities they can participate in individually too. Robyn and Shelby spent the afternoon putting together goodie bags for their chosen homeroom. I guess going to school is like a party and you get a goodie bag.

What? No Posts?

When I started this blog in February, my intent was to post a picture taken each day. It is not easy to attempt to come up with interesting photos of what happens with us each day. We are not all that interesting. At times, it stresses me to try to think of something...anything. Hence the frequent knitting and fruit tree posts. It got to the point that I stopped posting at all since there was nothing intersting going on. Why do we let little things like this bother us? No one is putting this pressure on me, but me. So I had a little talk with myself and decided it is ok not to post every day. I will when I can, but life as we know it goes on if a post does not appear. There...I feel so much better.

Chicken Little Doesn't Live Here

While walking through the kitchen, Phillip felt a drip on his head. Looking up this is what he saw. Oh no! Not a good sign. Since we are clueless over here, Phillip called our handy next door neighbor who knows tons. Bill was able to pin point the problem immediately. A leak in one of our AC lines. The liquid, from somewhere in the system, had pooled on the attic floor and finally made its way down through the ceiling. Great. Guess who is calling the AC guys in the morning?

Surely You Jest

Earlier this week, my friend, Gina, welcomed her second granddaughter. I made a bunny hat for the new baby, but I wanted to make a hat for her first granddaughter. I decided on a jester hat. I love the fun colors of this yarn and think it goes well with the type of hat. I started knitting it when we were in Houston earlier this month. Not thinking, I finished it off before I measured the length. It was too short. I put it aside and pretended that I didn't mess it up. Once the new baby arrived, I pulled the hat out and began to think about how to fix it. I planned to knit a strip to sew onto the bottom. That looked horrible. I was stumped. Finally, I checked to see if anyone on Ravelry had run into similar problems. Eureka! There are others out there who have not thought a project through and found a link for a blog where suggestions are given on how to fix projects that are too short or too long. I cut out the bottom row and picked up the live stitches and was able to finish it correctly. Why didn't I think of that before?

A Hat Again?

I am slowly working through my stash of yarn. Unfortunately (not!), I will never find the end because I keep buying more. As stated earlier, I can't help buying it, especially when it is on sale. This hat is a combo of two yarns. One is a "speciality" yarn that has bits of eyelash and multi-colors running through it. It was on sale for 71 cents. I "had" to buy the second regular type of yarn, that was not on sale, to knit with the other. I have made a couple of other hats with the multi-colors running through them and I love the way they look.

If you look closely, you can see the tip of Skitttles' tail peaking out on the left side. She was my assistant photographer this morning.

I Want To Be A Cat

And yet another post in the series of why being a cat would be a good thing to be. This is what Whiskers does 28 hours a day. I made my point.

Taking Back My Hoard

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the parish library site and put a ton of knitting books on hold. Some I had been reading about on Ravelry and others just looked good. Once they came in, I had something like 20 or so knitting books out. I was in book heaven. Finally, it was time to reduce my stash down to those I really wanted to peruse deeper. I jumped in the car with my trusty car pals and off we went. Jasmine truly does not like the CRV. The seats are much narrower than the van, so she did more whining than usual. Skittles is happy to be in any car. Once I dropped the books in the return, I jumped out to take their picture. I got some real strange looks. I thought that was just as amusing as they thought we were.

P. S. It was hard to return the books. I loved them all.